Using the Sponsorship System as Part of the Onboarding Process

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What is the sponsorship system?

The sponsorship system is part of U-M Identity & Access Management. It is used to create uniqnames and online identities for sponsored affiliates, people who are affiliated with the university but who do not receive uniqnames otherwise. Sponsored affiliates include, for example, conference attendees, contractors, incoming faculty who need access to U-M resources before the hiring process is complete, and others.

This process is automated for Michigan Medicine employees and is readily used for onboarding faculty in academic units. For our purposes, the sponsorship process is for one use case: as part of the onboarding for incoming employees in academic units.

For detailed information about sponsorship, view: Overview of the Sponsor System.

Why would academic units want to sponsor new employees as part of the onboarding process?

The first day of a new employee’s employment at U-M is such an important day of onboarding. It is critical that the university is prepared for them. Sponsoring allows the unit/department to be prepared on the new employee’s first day of employment with access to applications and systems that they will need in their work such as email, cloud storage, unit drives, etc.

This process allows access to so many U-M services immediately. There is no need to wait for the new employees' first day to provide access to systems. Unit/departments can give access to systems before their first day but there is no need to tell the new employee they have access.

Note: Before a unit is able to sponsor new employees, they would need to set up the following roles: one sponsoring authority and one or more sponsorship administrators. This is done per DeptID.
Pros and Cons of sponsoring new hires
Pros

Allows the new hire’s department the opportunity to give access to IT systems and other resources before their date of hire, including Zoom, DropBox, MCommunity groups, Duo, etc.

This process is used on campus for hiring faculty so many units are already familiar with it.

We are more organized and productive on a new hire's first day by having these things done already.

Avoids having to spend additional time on the first day to identify and provision access to systems and resources, which can seem disorganized and a waste of valuable time.

Cons

There is initial set up needed if a unit does not have sponsorship authority and sponsorship administrators established.

This process hinges on knowing the earliest date of the uniqname being created; however there currently isn’t a mechanism in eRecruit to notify the hiring manager when it has been created. Work-arounds can be created such as sending a daily scheduled report to an established email group OR asking the new hire to notify the unit when they created their uniqname. In an ideal situation, a system that would send an automated notification when the new hire creates their uniqname.

The unit needs to know exactly what the new hire needs access to in advance, enterprise unit- and team-specific systems.
Definitions of roles

Definitions of the sponsorship authority and sponsorship administrators roles can be found here: https://documentation.its.umich.edu/node/255#sponsorsystem

The sponsorship authority authorizes sponsorship administrators for specified university departments. Sponsorship administrators are able to create sponsorships in the departments to which they have access.

Sponsoring authority should be someone at a high level in the organization who can and will create the sponsor administrator(s). Unit HR is a good choice, or the Chief of Staff. Whoever has the ability to make decisions. The process of creating a sponsorship will identify at least one Sponsorship administrator (usually Unit HR).

Many units already sponsor incoming faculty and have a sponsorship authority and sponsorship administrators. Some units already sponsor new staff, such as OVPR.
Step-by-step Instructions
Unit determines if they have a sponsoring authority and sponsor administrators in the deptID of the new hire.

If no sponsoring authority, request sponsoring authority via the Onboarding Access Request System (OARS). Generally managed by Unit HR. Requires on campus connection or VPN if remote.

If no sponsorship administrators, assist sponsoring authority to request a sponsorship administrators for one or more people. Unit HR is a good start. oars.it.umich.edu. Requires on campus connection or VPN if remote.

Once there is a sponsor administrator for the appropriate DeptID, go to step 2.

New hire receives first email from the SSC to begin the onboarding process.

Trigger: new hire finalized in eRecruit system.

Purpose: to give approved hiring info (title, salary, start date, end date, department, hours per week)

Sent manually by SSC with final appt info and info about additional messages to come

From: an individual in the SSC, signed as UHR

Only reference to completing the I-9 form

New hire receives first automated email from eRecruit (HROB1)

Purpose: Provides UMID and prepares new employee for the next message (sent next day) with request to create a uniqname and validate personal information.

New hire creates a uniqname as part of the eRecruit process.

When eRecruit/SSC send the new hire the email to create their uniqname, the hiring manager needs to ask the new hire to 1) create their uniqname as soon as possible and 2) tell the new hire to let them (the hiring manager) know their uniqname has been created.

Or the unit can work with ITS to receive a daily report of appointments currently in suspense: Sponsorship administrator (SA) gets notification about new hires daily while the new hire’s appointment is “in suspense.” Suspense is the time between the time when the background check has cleared / hire is finalized and the hire date. This report also shows the status of the I-9.

Sponsorship administrator sponsors the new staff hire. The sponsorship will be added to an existing account. The sponsor administrator will enter the uniqname they are given to add the sponsorship. The administrator can use other information, like DOB or mailing address, to visually confirm they have the correct person.

When the administrator saves, it sends an automated email to the requestor (hiring manager is the recommended requestor).

The hiring manager and others are responsible for providing access to network shares, software subscriptions, departmental/team MCommunity email groups, MCommunity permissions to Google and Dropbox, Zoom, etc.

Priorities to be done and communication with new hires about IT.

Hiring manager gives IT a list of things they need access to, google calendars, folders, etc

New hires won’t see any difference when a sponsor umich id transitions to the permanent uniqname.

Human Resources University of Michigan

Using the Sponsorship System as Part of the Onboarding Process

Quick Links

What is the sponsorship system?

Pros

Cons

Organizational Learning

Using the Sponsorship System as Part of the Onboarding Process

Quick Links

What is the sponsorship system?

Pros

Cons

Organizational Learning

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